See page 7 of Priedhorsky, R., Chen, J., Lam, S. T. K., Panciera, K., Terveen, L., & Riedl, J. (2007, November). Creating, destroying, and restoring value in Wikipedia. In *Proceedings of the 2007 international ACM conference on Supporting group work* (pp. 259-268). http://reidster.net/pubs/group282-priedhorsky.pdf
They discuss the probability of a page view of Wikipedia containing vandalism rising over time. I wanted to replicate this analysis and extend it past 2007 but I never got the chance. I think the methodology is really interesting though. It doesn't directly answer the question but it does get at the *impact* of vandalism. On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 12:13 PM Isaac Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > To WSC's point about the difficulty of detecting such behavior or surveying > at a point in which it would still be salient, I'd add that in general we > have a large gap in our knowledge about why people choose to stop editing > because almost all of our survey mechanisms depend on existing logged-in > usage of the wikis. This is a challenge with many other websites too but > it's generally easier to find and survey who, for instance, has left > Facebook (example > < > http://socialmedia.soc.northwestern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/CHI2013-FBLL.pdf > >) > by collecting a random sample of people than it is to find and survey > someone who was a former editor of Wikipedia. There were surveys that did > ask about major barriers to editing (which presumably contribute to > burnout) such as the 2012 survey: > > https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Editor_Survey_2012_-_Wikipedia_editing_experience.pdf#page=17 > (see the editor survey category > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Editor_surveys> if you're > looking > for others) > > Some things that come to mind though: > > - I suspect very few readers see vandalism in their daily browsing (as a > very frequent, long-term reader of English Wikipedia, I have trouble > recalling encountering any clear vandalism in the course of normal > reading). That said, I do suspect that most people have seen plenty of > stories of outlandish vandalism to Wikipedia -- some legitimate but many > more about vandalism that literally lasted minutes -- that may lead to > lower trust. Whether or not lower trust in Wikipedia leads to lower > readership is a separate question though. Jonathan Morgan ran some > recent > surveys on reader trust and what factors affected it that might be > relevant: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:The_role_of_citations_in_how_readers_evaluate_Wikipedia_articles#Second_round_survey > - Specifically in the context of harassment and gender equity: > - Harassment as barrier: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_equity_report_2018/Barriers_to_equity > - Edit summaries in particular as harassment: > https://www.elizabethwhittaker.net/wmf-internship (more details > < > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase#July_2019> > ) > - Annual Community Insights Reports often have a section on this -- > e.g., > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Insights/Community_Insights_2020_Report/Thriving_Movement#Safe_and_Secure_Spaces > - 2015 Harassment Survey: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Harassment_survey_2015 > - The body of work around barriers to newcomers might have some good > insights too -- e.g., > > https://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfaker/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/ > > > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 5:44 AM WereSpielChequers < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi Amir, > > > > This is one of those areas of research where we really need the annual > > editor survey. I think it ran once after the 2009/10 Strategy process, > and > > I don't know if the best questions got included. > > > > But the best time to ask editors what prompted them to start editing > has > > to be fairly soon after they started as memories fade. I once went back > to > > my early edits and the edit I remembered starting me editing barely made > it > > into my first 50. > > > > There is a longstanding theory that a lot of new editors start or started > > to fix some vandalism that they saw, and that this group went into steep > > decline a decade ago with the rise of Cluebot and other antivandalism > tools > > that work faster than a newbie could. But without an annual survey to ask > > editors what prompted them to edit you are going to struggle to research > > this. Of course you could look at the early logged in edits of > > active/prolific wikipedians, but if it is true that many/most Wikipedians > > start with some IP edits, the earliest edits of many Wikipedians won't be > > available. > > > > Abuse one assumes has a differential effect on the targets of abuse, > > disproportionately women, gays and ethnic minorities. But I'd be inclined > > to look at stuff targeted at their user and usertalkpages rather than > > talkpages and edit summaries, though an email survey of former editors > > would be useful. > > > > My suspicion is that when we revert, block and maybe even revdel or > > oversight abuse we assume that fixes the problem, and if we want to > tackle > > abuse we need more edit filters to prevent such abuse from going live. > > > > WSC > > > > On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 at 15:16, Amir E. Aharoni < > > [email protected]> > > wrote: > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > Is there any research about the effect of vandalism in wiki content > pages > > > on readers, experienced editors, and new and potential editors? > > > > > > And of abuse in discussion pages and edit summaries on experienced > > editors > > > and new and potential editors? > > > > > > Intuitively and anecdotally one could think of the following: > > > 1. Vandalism in content pages (articles) wastes editors' and > patrollers' > > > time. This (probably) doesn't require proof (or does it?). But some > > people > > > say it also causes some experienced editors to burn out and leave. Is > > there > > > any data about it, beyond intuition? > > > > > > 2. Does vandalism *measurably* affect the perception of the wikis' > > > reliability? (This may be wildly different in different languages and > > > wikis.) > > > > > > 3. Abusive language on discussion pages and edit summaries affects > > editors, > > > and may cause them to reduce their editing, to stop editing about > certain > > > topics, or to leave the wiki entirely. Is this effect measurable? How > > does > > > it differ for various groups by gender, age, religion, country, > > > professional and educational background, seniority at the wiki, etc.? > > > > > > Thanks! :) > > > > > > -- > > > Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי > > > http://aharoni.wordpress.com > > > “We're living in pieces, > > > I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wiki-research-l mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wiki-research-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > > > -- > Isaac Johnson (he/him/his) -- Research Scientist -- Wikimedia Foundation > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
